Oct 19, 2016

FunYahoo++: New Yahoo Messenger Plugin For Pidgin / libpurple [PPA]

Yahoo retired its old Messenger protocol in favor of a new one, breaking compatibility with third-party applications, such as Pidgin, Empathy, and so on.

Eion Robb, the SkypeWeb and Hangouts developer, has created a replacement Yahoo prpl plugin, called FunYahoo++, that works with the new Yahoo Messenger protocol.

Note that I tested the plugin with Pidgin, but it should work with other instant messaging applications that support libpurple, like BitlBee or Empathy.

According to the plugin GitHub page, the new Yahoo Messenger protocol lacks quite a few features that were available with the old one, such as typing notifications, away / idle statuses, and bold / italic / underline formatting. Also, if you're previously used Yahoo Messenger, your old buddy list is no longer available. Since these are missing in the protocol itself, they cannot be added to FunYahoo++.

Furthermore, FunYahoo++ is pretty new and still needs work. For now it only supports basic features like sending/receiving messages and adding buddies. Two Factor Authentication is not yet supported.

Also, since both the plugin and the protocol are new, you'll encounter bugs. But if you want to use Yahoo Messenger in a desktop application on Linux, this seems to be the only way for now. The alternative is to use the web version.

If you cannot log in using the new FunYahoo++ plugin, you should try using the web version of Yahoo Messenger once, as that seems to initialize your account. Logging in using FunYahoo++ should then work.